*Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago boys including those pictured above (we claim no affiliation), and others who helped to liberalize Latin American economies.
"Restore(s) a little sanity into current political debate" - Kenneth Minogue, TLS "Projects a more expansive and optimistic future for Americans than (the analysis of) Huntington" - James R. Kurth, National Interest "One of (the) most important books I have read in recent years" - Lexington Green
During a recent conversation with a csr from a vendor of mine, things began to get a bit heated. I had several promises broken to me by the vendor. They had not sent the stuff to me, and as a result my customer was getting pissed. I was in danger of losing the entire job, and a customer to boot. Bad.
I started to try to come up with solutions for the company, since they had none. Here is an abbreviated version of the conversation.
Me: Can you sub the item?
CSR: No.
Me: When are they expected to be in?
CSR: Hopefully within a week.
Me: Unacceptable. How about looking at other distributors to see if they have some?
CSR: Can’t do it.
Me: Come on! How about giving me a better model for the same price?
CSR: No can do.
Me: I need a solution to this problem - pass me up the chain of command.
Like many, the current events in the financial markets have me a bit dazzled. I understand a lot more than I did a few weeks ago from reading blog posts, newspaper articles and a small book or two. I also have been watching CNBC and Fox Business which have had a lot of interesting information on them as well. But I have a reservation. Whenever I see a report on CNBC or soak in a few pixels of information on a website I get a certain empty feeling. I feel as though I am being played. These information outlets feed on advertising for their lives, after all. Blood always leads, even on the financial pages.
The very best thing I have read on the current situation was in the WSJ weekend edition a week ago. It wasn’t “world ending” stuff, and it was easy to understand and concise. Several articles in the same edition were excellent.
In these tough times, the media does it best to convey the impression that it’s really looking out for the best interest of the humble investor.
In its September 28, 1998 issue, Fortune’s cover screamed: “The Crash of ‘98. Can the U.S. Economy Hold up?” The Managing Editor explained that Fortune was “dedicated” to making sense of the “scary” financial situation.
How helpful!
I am not trivializing the current financial crisis. I have no idea what the direction of the markets will take in the future. What I do know is the financial media have a vested interest in hyping extreme conditions because it is in their economic interest to do so.
Investors can learn from the terrible track record of the media in predicting the future of the markets. They are not a reliable source of information.
What are your alternatives?
Consider the 80-year history of the markets, which have experienced ten bear markets. Look at long-term risk and reward data. Read books that have peer review, academically tested data supporting intelligent investing principles. There has been a trend by authors of these books to write them in way that is easily understood by everyone…
…Ignore the financial media, unless you find it entertaining.
The big wooden horse the Greeks gave the Trojans was not a gift. Neither is the information provided with such confidence by most of the financial media.
The article is appropriately named Kissing Cousins: The Wall Street Collapse and Media Hype.
I received a confirming email from a hotel in Atlanta. I am staying there next week on business. It mentioned the amenities of the hotel, including “in-room workouts”. Being the fitness freak that I am I went to the hotel’s website to figure out what exactly that was - but no dice, nothing there on the subject.
Why not workout in my room instead of the workout room, right? My other thought was that I could hire a personal trainer for a short period of time that may come right to the room for some strength training. I figured it would be good to get another person’s opinion of my workouts and to possibly show me some pointers. So lets call the hotel to see what it is about.
Me: Good afternoon. I am calling to find out what the in-room workout is. I saw it mentioned on my confirmation and couldn’t find anything about it on your website.
Hired Help: Oh, that means that you have a treadmill in your room.
Me: Is it extra money?
HH: Yes sir, and we have only two of these rooms in the entire hotel.
Me: Doesn’t sound like it would be worth it, I guess I can walk down to the workout room.
HH: Yea, most people do. Only extremely obese people usually request the treadmill in the room.
I visited Portland, Oregon on business a few weeks ago. I had a spare afternoon and after a workout I decided to give myself a walking tour of the area. It was mostly nice, with a few seedy places in the downtown area. As I was walking I came upon this bar, the Satyricon (Photo credit here).
In and of itself it is not an impressive place, it is a rock club like so many others. What made me stop in my tracks was the fact that by total chance I had happened upon a place that I partied at some 15 years ago. I paused and stared at the outside of the club (it was the middle of the day) for five or ten minutes as many memories washed over me.
Much has been said already about Governor Palin. I want to concentrate on her looks. Which is easy to do for most heterosexual males. She is well put together. I like the glasses, I like the skirts, I like the fact that she is an in shape ass kicker of a female.
Here is what Helen, our friend from across the pond said:
And talking of who looks good. You know what makes me mad: how does a woman who has had five children get away with wearing a pencil skirt? Sheesh.
Mitch replied:
Sorry, Helen, but she apparently does it the old-fashioned way: by keeping to a physical regime that would kill most men of her age, let alone of mine. Let us of normal pudginess admire her, and let those who dare, emulate her. Not me, thank-you-very-much. The First Dude doesn’t look much like a citified metrosexual ponce, either, so perhaps it’s just as well they found each other. If they had found one of us regular types, somebody could have gotten hurt.
I am fortunate to have a wife whose figure recovered quite nicely and quickly after bearing two wonderful children. Many women I have known are not so lucky and struggle with their weight all of their lives after having kids. It looks like Palin may have taken the issue into her own hands and decided that she would be in shape, doing it the old fashioned way - exercise. A quick dose of Google reveals a few interesting things.
I am a very simple person, with simple thought processes, and a pretty black and white view of things. Since owning a firearm is essentially illegal in the City of Chicago (for now) can someone please explain this to me?
It seems Carl las opened up quite the can of worms talking about the shoddy service he receives on a regular basis in Chicago. First off, Carl needs to move to Racine or Valparaiso and start commuting every day so he can begin to enjoy the fruits of living rural. Jokes aside, I do have some relevant thoughts.
I agree with Ginny in her post on the subject on the red/blue states.
I tend to agree with the comments about red state/blue state divisions, though clearly it is often a matter of rural/urban and mompop/corporate.
Lex and I are having a friendly back and forth on love songs, and we have been concentrating mostly on rock. I recently introduced a little ambiguity into the discussion, and Lex brought out some (what used to be called) alternative rock in his last post. Some big guns have been pulled out recently, with Lou Reed and REM entering the discussions.
Not only will I pull out another big gun in this post, I will introduce us to a completely new genre of music as related to love songs - while pulling myself out of the ambiguous and bringing the discussion into the obvious.
Chicago is one of the finalists to get the Summer Olympics for 2016. The other three finalists are Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro (I had originally listed Buenos Aires, but was corrected - my mistake), and Madrid. A decision will be made in October of 2009.
As my wife and I were driving home from vacation last week, we had a chance to chat in the van while the kids were sleeping. The topic of the Olympics came up, after we heard a report from Beijing on the radio. Conversation got around to the bid by the city of Chicago to host the 2016 Summer games. Read the rest of this entry »
Over the past year or two we have seen here the feats of physical prowess that our crew of bloggers here are capable of. Not mentioned yet are the mental aspects of physical fitness.
From vacation last week I give you an example of the high level of concentration required to be an elite athlete. Note the form, and the proper position taken. And all of that after a day on the beach and several beers consumed.
As an added bonus, you can see the swimsuit that is sure to gain you the attention of all the ladies. Fortunately my wife was there to fight them off and ensure that I was able to have a relaxing time.
I am a sports junkie. Since I have been a wee lad I have loved sports and followed them. Watching them on TV has a somewhat calming effect on me, or lets me blow off steam. I get to escape the realities of my world for a few hours.
Since I have been alive I have enjoyed the Olympics, Summer and Winter. The drug scandals and other controversies such as fixed judging and other things like that piss me off, but I always end up coming back. I just love sports.
I would like to take you on a tour of the events that are featured at the Summer Olympics this year, and make a comment or two on them.
I heard today that Senator Ted Stevens is in a bit of trouble. Honestly, I don’t know if he did anything wrong, but he looks to be under investigation for corruption of some sort.
Stevens may be a crook, but he may very well be a good guy - I dunno. When I hear his name, I think of two things. One thing I remember about him is the bridge to nowhere.
The other thing I think of when I hear the name Ted Stevens is the famous “series of tubes” quote, put into song masterfully by someone who has too much time on their hands. Sorry to the fans of Stevens, but whenever I hear his name, the first thing that pops into my head is - hey, that is the “series of tubes” guy!
Lex has attempted admirably to try to force my hand as far as popular love songs go. His last post was a very good one, and he has admittedly made me start to unveil some of my aces in the hole. Here is a love song unlike too many others. Perfect Day.
Slow, nice, does he love her? Does she love him?
“You just keep me hanging on”…are they really in love? Is he going to kill himself?
“You made me forget myself. I thought I was someone else, someone good.” I love this line.
Is it two people? Drugs? It is for you to decide. I know my feelings on it. Lou Reed, “Perfect Day”, live.
I am a middle man. I run a business that sells HVAC products and equipment to contractors. We do not do any retail.
In my world, it is common for the manufacturer of the equipment that I am selling to set up factory direct stores that welcome contractor business. It makes it interesting, to say the least. Imagine you are doing your best you can to sell a company’s products, then they set up a store down the street a few blocks and sell directly to your customers. It may sound weird to some, but it happens all the time in my industry.
We sell service, delivery, no damage, taking care of problems, and basically do everything that the factory direct stores can’t, or won’t. The relationship is more complex than this, but for this post that is all I need to explain about it, as that is the nuts and bolts of it.
The huge problem with this situation is that as a reseller, you are obviously at a price disadvantage to the factory direct store. There is only so far you will go with this line. That is fine with me, you either take it or leave it. But something interesting happened a few weeks ago. I received a call that this particular manufacturer was shutting down its operations in my state. That is awesome news for me.
Lex and I have been having a friendly back and forth here about love songs. I think this is one. You may or may not…Death Cab for Cutie, “Grapevine Fires” (I particularly like this version because it is live):
When the wind picked up the fire spread
And the grapevines seemed left for dead
And the Northern sky looked like the end of days
The end of days
The wake-up call to a rented room
Sounded like an alarm of impending doom
To warn us it’s only a matter of time
Before we all burn
Before we all burn
Before we all burn
Before we all burn
We bought some wine and some paper cups
Near your daughters school when we picked her up
And drove to a cemetery on a hill
On a hill
And we watched the plumes paint the sky gray
But she laughed and danced through the field of graves
And there I knew it would be alright
That everything would be alright
Would be alright
Would be alright
Would be alright
And the news reports on the radio
Said it was getting worse
As the ocean air fanned the flames
But I couldn’t think
Of anywhere I would of rather been
To watch it all burn away
To burn away
And the firemen worked in double shifts
With prayers for rain on their lips
And they knew it was only a matter of time
I got slagged like never before in my posts about copyright infringement here and here. Eventually I came to the realization that I was wrong in my practice, no matter how hard I wanted to justify it. It killed me, but I decided to stop watching the show through the illegal means.
Well, I see today that one of my favorite networks, Versus, is going to be airing the very show that I never thought I would get to see, Contender Asia. They will call it Contender Muay Thai over here. Unfortunately I know who the eventual winner is, from my normal surfing in the Muay Thai and fighting forums. Sometimes maybe there is good karma to be had. I can’t wait.
In response to Lex Green’s post, I give this video of what I consider a love song from one of the few bands I would pay to see if they play anywhere in this hemisphere, the White Stripes:
Lyrics:
Fell in love with a girl
fell in love once and almost completely
she’s in love with the world
but sometimes these feelings
can be so misleading
she turns and says “are you alright?”
I said “I must be fine cause my heart’s still beating”
She says “come and kiss me by the riverside, bobby says it’s fine he don’t consider it cheating”
